E.E.E.I.

by David Byrne

For more than a year, David Byrne has been employing the ubiquitous sales and presentation program PowerPoint as an art medium. E.E.E.I (Envisioning Emotional Epistemological Information) is a book of images and essays, plus a DVD which plays 5 of his PowerPoint presentations accompanied by original music. The book component contains a dozen new exploratory texts and a whole lot of bold, graphic images created with the help of PowerPoint's built-in tools and visuals--not to mention the fun of plastic overlays and nifty foldout pages. And you may ask yourself, what is the meaning of this? And you may ask yourself, what is this about? It is about taking subjective, even emotional, information and presenting it in a familiar audiovisual form--using a medium in a way that is different, and possibly better, than what was intended. It is about appropriating a contemporary, corporate staple and making something critical, beautiful and humorous with it.

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Essays

96 pages, Hardcover

First published August 1, 2003

About the author

A cofounder of the musical group Talking Heads, David Byrne has also released several solo albums in addition to collaborating with such noted artists as Twyla Tharp, Robert Wilson, and Brian Eno. His art includes photography and installation works and has been published in five books. He lives in New York and he recently added some new bike racks of his own design around town, thanks to the Department of Transportation.

Photo © Catalina Kulczar-Marin

Reviews

[John R Hughes · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Byrne took some time out to play with PowerPoint. He labels himself a 'pseudo-bohemian' experimenting with the media used by the 'Pod People'. This multi-media book and region-free DVD come as a pack. David advises in the notes to 'try and avoid using the DVD as a coaster' ... an example of his humour and wit which I think underpins the whole project.

The 'Sound and Vision' together are quite trippy and DB has his stated purpose to put emotional information through new and different media to see what happens. It reminds me a bit of the 'Exploding Plastic Inevitable' multi-media events that Andy Warhol set up with The Velvet Underground.

David Byrne is NYC cool, and as with his music, is getting us to stop and pause and look at these lives we are living. I see the book is now over £100, so there I was making a great investment 20 years ago. I would say the work fits alongside the album 'Fear of Music', especially 'Paper' and 'Cities' that I felt like listening too as companion pieces after re-reading the book and playing the artwork.

TIME Magazine had David Byrne on the front in October 1986, and called him Rock's Renaissance Man. He has gone on to earn this many times over. For any fans, check out this regular output on MixCloud.

[Jarrodtrainque]

David Byrne is the only rocker who could have imagined turning Microsoft PowerPoint into an art form. When Time put Byrne on the cover in 1986, the title was aptly, "Rock's Renaissance Man." Indeed, the one-time lead singer//architect of The Talking Heads composes operas, symphonies, and soundtracks, made a film (True Stories), and was a wunderkind video artist and designer (Time even let Byrne create his cover). Byrne's oddly-titled 2003 coffee table book ("epistemological" is a philological look at the origin, methods, and limits of human knowledge) is new version of mixed media, a rough dissertation on a visual, universal language. Bryne mixes the familiar images of a PowerPoint presentation out of the norm, be it a complicated flow chart or altered icons. The message is blurred at times (as with the title, big words prevail), but the project takes a fuller form on the accompanying DVD that's region-free with NTSC and PAL formats, making it playable practically around the world. The five presentations (approximately 25 minutes in all) are accompanied by original musical compositions. Byrne plays the usual patterns of PowerPoint--overlays, swipes, and fades--resulting in an intriguing art exhibition that could even play on a laptop computer with DVD-ROM drive. The least interesting chapter of the book ("Physiognomies") is the most moving piece on the DVD. The final result could be considered art, or just a high-minded swipe at the "Dilbert" office world that uses the program. Regardless, E.E.E.I. is a unique concept one might have to "stop making sense" and just enjoy the experience. --Doug Thomas

[Tessa Campbell · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Byrne from the Talking Heads is highly facinated with conceptial design and has published several books on desgin.

This book can go hand and hand with Edward Tufte's "The Cognitive Style of Powerpoint". Within E.E.E.I. David Byrne utilizes powerpoint as an artistic medium rather than for the corporate world, who it caters for. It is true that Powerpoint is a creative endeavor that allows humans to peresent their information in a constructive and artful way. But the issue is, as both Tufte and Byrne argue, that it is so easy to use that it can make any idiot appear to know what they are talking about. It is not even necessary to be an art major to use it.

The first adaption of Powerpoint was released back in 1984 in black and white! and was originally called "Presenter". The Design in E.E.E.I. is splendid. I do not own a copy but am interested in purchasing it. I checked out a copy at the Univeristy Art Library. I have never been a fan of Powerpoint and also wondered what the hype was about it. That is when I read Edward Tufte's blurb on it. Say bye bye to gaudy graphics and cluttered text and you have no idea how many lame powerpoint presentation I have had to sit through.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious jab at academia and Powerpoint. The included DVD is very creative and really shows how Byrne methodically combed through every feature of the program and put it to use.

[Joe]

David Byrne is from the future. Started as a rip on the use of PowerPoint in the world. Found out he liked it along the way and this was the result.

[Keith]

I would think David is Mac Man! Look forward to ready it - who can I borrow it from?

[Matt Webb · Rating 4 out of 5]

Art in the medium of Powerpoint and some wise words there too.

[Andrew Bourne · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Anti Edward Tufte